Save it, they will rise again?

I managed to escape Richmond with some currency.


For regular green (or angle-changing colored) currency, check out "WheresGeorge.com" I have had a couple of bills found and tracked.

A friend of mine, Paul, forwared one of those emails that at the end begs and tries to shame you into sending it on to other people. It is an interesting mentality there that I have not got a handle on yet. The assumption of the do-gooders writing these emails is that there is a virtue in the mere act of forwarding some message to many others. This virtue is separate from the content of the message. Just the act of forwarding to help others is assumed to be a good thing. I must be evil, 'cause I usually don't send them on.

On a separate theme, the email mentioned above was a long one lamenting the way everything has to be mandated safe today and noting that we all grew up with lead paint, bad cribs, had fights and accidents, didn't lock our doors, etc., and we came out O.K. I wrote him back the following email that I share with this blog;

Paul,
I just got a chance to read the email you fowarded to me all the way through. What a shame that our society has come this far, isn't it. They are trying to make it so safe and risk free that nobody will learn the hard knocks. I'm sure you were like me and had a classic risky childhood. I remember setting rat traps when I was in 1st grade! I mean those nasty wire ones that will snap your finger off. I remember climbing in the trees in back of our house as a kid, so high and on the tippy top of the tree when the wind was whipping me back and forth. . . I was loving it. I remember us three boys jumping on the tailgate of our station wagon (fake wood paneling on the sides) maybe on Friday afternoon when Dad drove down town about a mile to do his banking or whatever. We would dangle and drag our feet and the dog would be either following us or up there with us. I remember catching all kinds of snakes, A couple of us braver kids climbed up the rickety iron loop ladder inside an abandoned smokestack outside of town (The Saltblock) . Of course it was condemned and posted and our parents would have killed us if they knew. Some of the loops were loose, and the thing was a real tower. When we got to the top, the view was like you were in an airplane, we thought. You could see for miles. And it was so scary! You could actually see and feel the stack sway about a foot from side to side. Just an example, but the risky and sometimes stupid things that we did as kids made all the difference in the world at becoming independent and more resistant to the world's thorns that may pop up later in life. If we continue to sanitize and round all the dangerous corners to try to make everything risk free it will be a shame.